Q & A Fest
Dispatches from A Fest 2, a cultural exchange program better known as a week-long series of gigs
Interviews by ALICE SARMIENTO
Photographs by KEITH DADOR
Organized by local indie outfit, Kindassault records, A Fest features regional and local talent in a week-long festival of indie pop, rock, shoegaze, and electronica. Besides generating exposure and album distribution, A Fest has also been a successful platform for creating a sense of community among Asia’s independent musicians.
This year, bands and artists were flown in from Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore; so we came in to pester them about first CDs, favorite non-musical sounds, and things that remind them of “home” (wherever that may be).
Osaka's Brian the Sun at Route 196, April 15
Pepe Diokno Talks First Films
“You can’t separate your politics from your art because it’s part of human thought: what makes our politics makes our society. If you think that politics should be separate from art, then what would you make art about?”
Pepe Diokno, photo from Techie.com
Not to be confused with the older Jose “KaPepe” Diokno, Pepe Diokno is in his senior year at the University of the Philippines, taking up Film and Audiovisual Communication. His first film, Engkwentro (2009), follows brothers Richard and Raymond through the labyrinthine alleys of a slum in Anytown, Philippines. This project began as a documentary before being fictionalized into a feature-length piece that Diokno intended to submit as his thesis. Daunting production costs however prompted him to enter an earlier draft of the screenplay to the 2009 Cinemalaya competition, which grants young filmmakers just enough seed money to minimize the dent.
Engkwentro required a set to be built in the middle of the Santa Ana racetrack, hundreds of extras, and countless overdubs in both visual and audio components, making it no small feat to mount. And yet it was finished in a little less than a year, and went on to bag honors at the 5th Cinemalaya as well as the the gold lion at the 66th Venice Film Festival. –Interview by Alice Sarmiento
